China was successful in reducing rural poverty last year with the number of rural poor falling by 14.42 million to 55.75 million, official data showed on Monday.

Over 17 million urban residents and 49 million rural people received minimum living allowances as of the end of 2015, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement posted on its website.

"Disparities between urban and rural areas continued to narrow last year. Urban incomes were 2.73 times higher than rural incomes, down 2 percentage points from one year earlier," said Xu Xianchun, deputy director of the NBS.

Deducting price factors, the per capita disposable income of urban residents rose 6.6 percent year on year in 2015, while that of rural residents increased 7.5 percent.

The per capita net income of rural residents stood at 10,772 yuan ($1,657) in 2015, according to the statement.